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Location: Home  Blogs  Obscure Builders #1 (Zaboj) 
More Posts by pfm
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Obscure Builders #1 (Zaboj)
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Obscure Builders #1 (Zaboj)
Obscure Builders #1 (Zaboj) 17 Aug, 2015
 pfm (8 comments, 1532 views)  
Hi trackmaniacs!

I'm back to TM life after a year long break. yupeee =)

Lets dive straight into another weird project that I plan to be a series of blog posts.

Valley Obscure Builders
The idea is simple: I will find Valley builders that have only one track published on mx and no awards and as little track activity as possible (replays, dedis, etc).

But why?
Some may ask why I would go to the trouble of looking for tracks that are probably going to suck big time when there are so many brilliant and creative tracks being published by accomplished builders every day. Even worse on Valley the least played environment of all TM.

Well... it's just that I'm weird that way :p I find the mystery of finding a hidden gem appealing.
I also like to see firsthand the way a naive inexperienced builder approaches the track editor.
Valley, because I love building Valley maps, I just find the block variety and the car handling really appealing.


Obscure Builder #1

  Zaboj
  • Last active: 2 years ago
  • 1 track published
  • 0 awards (well he had 0 before i awarded)
  • 0 replays (well he has one from me and one from Morte_745 but he doesn't count cause he plays all tracks!)
  • 0 dedis


So we have a truly obscure Valley builder!
I actually found Zaboj via the random track button back in Feb 2014.
I tried the track and surprise surprise it didn't suck!
I must have spent hours hunting the track to my limited ability and had loads of fun.

The track:

Countryside by   Zaboj



Against all expectations the track turns out to be great!
It's 100% narrow roads and forest roads with some tricky 90 degree corners and a nice simple re-use towards the finnish.


The scenery is of the realistic variety and very well put together




I particularly like the first corner, where I'm not sure if it's faster to cut or not to cut inside on the grass.



I was also surprised by the few well placed signs and objects that make the wayfinding completely fool proof.

There are some long straights that sometimes betray some track design immaturity, but not here!

There are two main straits the first one is right before a tricky 90 degree bend and it adds tension as you position the car and prepare for the braking spot, the other is on the way to the finnish and depending on how well you took the last corner it can make or break your time.





I'm turning into a strong believer that almost all tracks (for online racing at least) should end in straight bits.
But that's just my opinion of course =)


Final comments

All in all a great mystery track builder with a wonderful little track!

I hope you liked this first post and try to beat my replay (00:49.320)
Please leave a comment if you found this fun to read.

thanks!
pfm


He even posted it to Steam workshop with 3 custom screenshots!




Comments
8 comment(s).
 MrA writes ... 12, Sep, 2015  
Awesome project here, its been great to read and I look forward to seeing more.

Good job! (y)
 pfm writes ... 19, Aug, 2015  
haenry says:
Cool project! (y)
I'm curious to see how many gems you can find :p

eheh, it's not easy finding really obscure authors with only one track that doesn't suck completely
I may relax my criteria a bit in the future, but there are some more gems for sure.

Also, just found some nice ways to stalk people on TM:

xaseco gives you a summary of online rankings, and the server where a player was last seen
http://www.xaseco.org/metastats.php?mp=zaboj

dedimania also gives some info
http://dedimania.net/tm2stats/?do=stat&Login=zaboj&Show=PLAYERS

 haenry writes ... 18, Aug, 2015  
Cool project! (y)
I'm curious to see how many gems you can find :p
 pfm writes ... 18, Aug, 2015  
riolu! says:
That's a pretty cool idea to cover. Just hoping you're not stumbling upon possible smurf accounts ;p

true! i've considered that as well, there are some builders that do tracks 100% for online, or for their teams and have no following whatsoever on mx, i'll try to spot those as best i can

ice_nine says:
It's good to see people like you who gives attention to newbies in mapping or players that work hard to build a track and it doesn't get even a replay. I'll keep following this thread. :build: :build:
Great idea, pfm. (y)

I'll try to cover some active newbies as well in the future, not just "dead" accounts =)
 riolu! writes ... 18, Aug, 2015  
That's a pretty cool idea to cover. Just hoping you're not stumbling upon possible smurf accounts ;p
 ice_nine writes ... 18, Aug, 2015  
It's good to see people like you who gives attention to newbies in mapping or players that work hard to build a track and it doesn't get even a replay. I'll keep following this thread. :build: :build:
Great idea, pfm. (y)
 pfm writes ... 17, Aug, 2015  
thanks eyebo =)

I just noticed there's a GPS on the track, omg he drives worse than me!
 eyebo writes ... 17, Aug, 2015  
Excellent series! Going to try this map and look forward to future gems you share. :)
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